Archmage Emeritus

The distillation of magecraft into a single self-perpetuating card. The keyword formalizes an old spellslinger dream: rewarding the act of casting rather than the presence of creatures on the board. Where earlier engines paid you in damage or tokens, this one pays in the resource that keeps the chain alive, so each spell digs toward the next. The subtle part is the trigger's phrasing: it fires on copies as well as casts, which turns any spell-duplication effect into a stack of draws instead of a single one. That distinction rewards copy density directly: a doubled spell resolves the ability once per copy, so the deeper your duplication package, the more cards each cast peels off. The cost lives in the brittle 2/2 frame, the classic glass-cannon Wizard: it adds no pressure the turn it resolves, folds to almost any removal spell, and hands the opponent a target they are obligated to answer before the draws pile up. But let it survive a turn, untap, chain one cheap spell, and it has already broken even. It is the payoff spellslinger decks had wanted for years, printed at exactly the rate that makes the strategy cohere.